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What happened to Italian merchant shipping after the Cassibile Armistice?

kolja

New Member
Did either the Italian Co-Belligerents or the RSI continue to operate any Italian flagged/crewed merchant ships? Or was whatever was left just taken over by the Allies and the Germans?

I would be interested to know any details of any merchant ships which continued to operate under Italian control (Co-Belligerent or RSI) between September 1943 until the end of the war.
 

DrG

Active Member
Those merchant ships that were not scuttled or sunk in the aftermath of the armistice were kept in service with the Italian merchant Nav(ies). The ships in the South were extensively used to transport supplies for the civilian population, while I have no information about those in the North, but I assume that, besides a few routes in the Adriatic, they remained idle in their ports.
 

kolja

New Member
Those merchant ships that were not scuttled or sunk in the aftermath of the armistice were kept in service with the Italian merchant Nav(ies). The ships in the South were extensively used to transport supplies for the civilian population, while I have no information about those in the North, but I assume that, besides a few routes in the Adriatic, they remained idle in their ports.

Regarding the Southern ships, were there many wartime losses between September 1943 until the end of the war?

Also, do you know if there were any Italian merchant ships in the Far East which continued to operate under an Italian flag after 1943? I only know that the Japanese took over a few when they heard about the armistice, and I also read that the crew of one Italian vessel in Kobe (the Calitea II) deliberately scuttled their ship to avoid it falling into Japanese hands.
 
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DrG

Active Member
I am not aware of any loss besides those directly linked to the German actions in the hours/days following the armistice. On the contrary, some ships interned in netrual countries (Ireland, Spain) were able to return to Southern Italy after the armistice.
No ships sailed under the Italian flag in the Far East after the armistice.
 
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